HandsomeRyan's Blog

[BigChickenStrips]

Hello everyone, welcome to my motorcycle blog!
We’ll start with an introduction. My name is Ryan, I live in Knoxville, TN. I am 21 years old (well next month I will be) I share an apartment with me awesome lady-friend Tabatha, and my 9 month old Doberman pincher named Princess (or Doggins as she is most often referred to). I recently became interested in motorcycles. No one in my family rides, nor do any of my close friends, but I have never really been like any of them so I guess I’ll just keep being different.

My history: I was born and raised here in east TN. I graduated high school in 03’ and went to college for 2 years studying ornamental horticulture (um… plants) but I had “some things come up” and decided to quit for now. My better half goes to UT (go vols) and is studying to be a biology/genetics person. She is wicked smart. My Doggins just graduated from puppy school but she didn’t really learn much.

Currently I work for a company that distributes magazines so I get to look at spreadsheets on computers all day in a nice little office. Oh yea, I get LOTS of free magazines.

I begin the MSF course tonight (4/28/06) and I am soooo excited! After the course I am looking to buy a bike and start riding.
When I first decided I wanted to be a biker, I did what many of us without a network of biker friends and family do- posted on this forum like “what is a good newbie bike?” and was told to read the stickys.

Now I know a little more after numerous dealer visits and pouring over craigs-list and cycle trader for hours a day I feel I know a little more about bikes. I appreciate all of the help and advice given on this site so far, and I know that much more will be coming.

I hope to get some pics of everything up soon, but here are a few to get us started:

Me in my new jacket,gloves, helmet and boots.


here is Princess (Doggins) when she was about 5 months old, shes about 2x that size now but still looks the same.

Thanks For Stopping By~!

[Z (fka Sweet Tooth)]

Good luck tonight, let us know how it goes!

[camthepyro]

Good luck at you MSF tonight. And I like you dog.


Oh, and the Vols are awesome.

[BigChickenStrips]

night one of MSF class-

I showed up about 30 minutes early because im a "hurry up and wait" type of person. so i walk into the classroom and theres an older man in there puttign out pamphlets on tables, i said "motorcycle class?" and he invited me in. he introduced himself and i took a seat front and center of the class. i was the first one there. so we made akward small talk for a minute about how great the weather was and whatnot.

a few more people came in and sat down quietly. and class began, we were supposed to stand up and say our name, where we are from, any motorcycling experience, and what we hoped to get from the class.

so.. being the "class clown" that i am when i got to what i wanted to learn i said i hope to be using the knee pucks in my one piece leather by saturday afternoon. (editors note: i dont have a one piece leather nor do i have knee pucks) everyone giggled.

so the class has 12 people in it. 8 guys, 4 girls, and one male and one female instructor. i am probably about the same age as one guy in the class but the two of us are a decade or more younger than all the other people in the class.

everyone seems to be really nice and i cant wait to start riding tomorrow.

ok so heres where im making some freinds. we voted to move the class begining up from 8AM to 7:30 tomorrow so i stopped by walmart and got a thing of chocolate chip cookies, some pre-sliced bananna bread, and 2 bags of doughnuts to bring with me tomorrow to make a "breakfast buffet" on my trucks tailgate fo my fellow riders tomorrow. arent i nice?

ok well i think its time for bed... but i hope to have more to report tomorrow after my first motorcycle ride evAr!



w00t.

[BigChickenStrips]

By the way:

everyone who views this blog should feel free to leave comments, questions, sugestions or whatever. i know we are all guilty of hijacking each others threads so i'll try to keep things from going toooooo far off topic (topic being me, and how awesome i am) but dont be shy if you have somethign to say.

[DivideOverflow]

Do you have a bike yet? Or are you getting one right after your MSF? If so, what kinds are you looking at?

I just like to know about everyone's rides.

[BigChickenStrips]

i do not have a bike, i thought about a gixxer 1000 but i dont have a .45, big sword, or a cape to wear. so now i am waitign to finish the class to see how i feel on the bikes. i fell in love with the monster 620 dark (ducati) and the 599 (honda) but both are a little more bike than i need and a little more than i am looking to spend on a first bike and if im not confident yet, i will end up with an 80's "beater" bike to hone my skills on, then 'll trade up in the fall or spring.

[NorthernPete]

i do not have a bike, i thought about a gixxer 1000 but i dont have a .45, big sword, or a cape to wear.

It was a scarf *chuckles*

and 80's beaters FTW!

[BigChickenStrips]

So the first riding day of class was, in a word... Humbling.

I started out doing really well but i am NOT good with the clutch.

we all got assigne bikes andi got the only "dual sport" most everyone else is on cruiser bikes. i like it and every one was really jelous. we sterted off learnign where the clutch engauges and stuff, i was okay with that, until time to ride on other excersizes, i must have stalled 400 times today, but i got some helpful advice form a rider coach and a class mate and im still slow to start but i am not stalling as often. we did a lot of different drills and i felt really good abotu it. it was SOOOOO much fun once you are on and riding. second gear is um.... a lot better than fisrt. if i thought i could reliably start in 2nd, i'd never use first on that bike, 1st is comfortable from about a dead stop to about 3mph then 2nd is good from 3 to baout 30 (as fast as i cared to go in the parking lot full of other beginner riders). we had beautiful weather, overcast but not rainy and a slight breeze. so accident recap-

of the 4 girls in class, 3 of them dropped the bike, 1 of them dropped it 2 times. but nothing serious, no injuries. none of the guys did. one girl also forgot to depres the clutch when we were parking in the "saging area, and almost plowed into about 4 of us who had already stopped. as a rule, the guys were a lot more confident than the girls. (not sexist, just true) but the guys were worse at following instructions, like missing turns and ridign the wrong way.

so i decided to rule out the liter bikes as first rides (although there are 2 guys in my class one is "gettign a gixxer 600 next week" and the other "has a CBR lined up to buy from a friend" neithe is much better than i am and so i try to keep my mouth shut when they say how awesome it they will look on them.

the breakfast stuff went over well, one other guy brought doughnuts to share, so we ade a buffet on the back of my truck and most of the stuff got eaten.


ok, well, i am tired, sweaty, achy, and smelly, so i need to go get in my bathtub and soak for a bit. but i am looking foward to riding again tomorrow and i dont think i'll have any problem passing the class.

[BigChickenStrips]

by the way- since this blog is all about me- you should all check out my favorite websites-

in no special order:

this one, but you already check it out, hey, your reading this arent you?

www.fark.com (funny news stuff)

www.wreckedexotics.com (pics of wrecked exotic cars)

www.rotten.com (the daily rotten news)

www.collegehumor.com (cool links and pics of boobies, probably NSFW)

www.hackaday.com (cool projects and "hacks")

www.ebaumsworld.com (videos)

www.giosphere.com (games)

www.the12volt.com (mobile audio and video forum)

www.craigslist.com (2 words, casual encounters) (just kidding)

www.wikipedia.com (coolest pedia ever, wikipedia)

i like thses sites and, um, if your cool- you will too!